There are anti-Google websites out there claiming Google is recording as much info on their website guests as possible to be retained as long as possible for purposes undisclosed. Is Google Evil? The ultimate Big Bro?
What’s the SD? I guess I could have Googled for the answer first, but… 
Yes. I use Scroogle Scraper. Better safe than sorry.
There will always be a perceived corporate Big Brother. It used to be the telephone company, as lampooned in the film *The President’s Analyst * (1967). Tomorrow it will be something else.
I don’t see retaining the data as evil.
It’s what they do with it that will determine that. So far, I’d say not evil because they don’t seem to do much with it.
CMC +fnord!
If they manage to target advertising to me of products or services that I would actually use, then I don’t care what Google does. Or if they do nothing, even better.
Cookies are not evil. They’re a necessary, and often very useful, side effect of the internet. Deal with it.
Long-term cookies designed not delete themselves until some far-off date are evil. It is cyberstalking. Even those who claim it is for marketing purposes…it is evil. Toys R Us collecting phone numbers? Evil. It is unnecssary. I am giving you my business, not my life! All others in this group? Evil!
Sometimes after I close my browser, sometimes as long as ten seconds afterward, my firewall will catch the Windows kernel trying to contact “Google analytics” or something like that. I’ve always wondered what that is. It does it on a fresh install behind a NAT, so I know it’s not malware. I’ll try to grab a screenshot if nobody knows what that’s all about.
I’m sure it’s nothing, but it does lend itself to paranoia.
Jinx writes:
> Long-term cookies designed not delete themselves until some far-off date are
> evil. It is cyberstalking. Even those who claim it is for marketing purposes…it is
> evil. Toys R Us collecting phone numbers? Evil. It is unnecssary. I am giving you
> my business, not my life! All others in this group? Evil!
Then get rid of your computer. Anything you do on it can be tracked by a sufficiently motivated adversary. Get rid of your phone. Anything you say on it can be heard by a sufficiently motivated adversary. Quit sending and receiving mail. It can be read by a sufficiently motivated adversary. Move out of your house and move to a rural area where no one lives close enough to watch you. Wait, that’s not good enough, since you can still be watched by satellite. Move to another solar system.
I find it bizarre how much information US stores ask for when you make a purchase.
It’s kind of hard to convince brick-and-mortar companies to put money and resources into their Web sites unless you give them a reason. If we say “people want to be able to find you online” they say that’s nonsense, people can find them in the Yellow Pages. Or they say “ok put up a page for $300.”
The way we in the Web business have to work it is to tell companies about how they can collect info and do better target marketing if they put a little money into it and let us hook them up with interactive sites that invite people to input their information, and set them up with ways to send targeted marketing emails and collect anonymous user data (like which people from which cities/regions are visiting which pages).
So when they’re finally convinced, we get paid. And the companies get better customer information which they can turn into better targeted marketing. And the consumers win out because they get better online services - helpdesks, knowledgebases, contests, online shopping, etc.
If none of this is going on, then the companies really have no incentive to have a better Web presence, and the Web is just a big mass of informational brochures, non-business cultural sites and spam. There’d be no interactivity at all between businesses and consumers online unless there was something in it for them - and what’s in it for them is your information, whether it be low-level anonymous info (someone from somewhere hit this page on this day) or specific personal information (Jinx from Space looked at this page on this day after looking at this other page and now we can recommend him some other stuff).
The Internet is “free” … but only to users. Someone’s got to pay to put data and functionality out there, and companies aren’t quick to do such a thing without getting something in return. That’s not good business.
Google Analytics is basically a tool that Google provides to web site owners to get statistics on who visits their sites. A website owner signs up with the Google Analytics service and then embeds some code within their web pages so that visitor traffic information can be viewed online…
The information provided is similar to what a website owner would get out of their web logs, or with a tool like Webtrends, but it’s especially helpful if the website owner also purchases Google Adwords, because you can track which ads are most effective, and which lead to higher sales conversions. This helps when split-testing ads to determine which one performs better.
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I had never heard of this movie until my husband found a copy and had me watch it - loved it! Now, here you are mentioning it. I need more obscure movie knowledge.
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